Barking up the wrong tree ?

Submitted by dmb on Wed, 21/01/2015 - 15:36

Apologies in advance for what might be a completely naive post ...

I've used a number of Raspberry Pi modules around the house for environmental and power monitoring and automation, and decided to investigate whether I could get some data on my gas consumption. I'm particularly interested in three topics:

1. measuring the total amount of gas consumed for heating, cooking and hot water - probably use either a Current Cost EnviR or build a hall effect/reed switch to stick on my Actaris gas meter;

2. sniffing the 868MHz control signals that go from my Honeywell RF thermochron (CM67NG) to the boiler in order to figure out when it's being switched on and off for heating;

3. sending the same codes (spoofing the thermostat) to turn the boiler on/off for remote control.

I've bought a RFM12Pi Adapter Board that I thought I could treat as a serial device for 2 and 3 above, but now I'm not sure that it does what I need, and don't know where to start ! I'm getting the impression that it's not so much of a raw device as a pre-built OEM component that talks to other OEM modules (e.g. the temp/humidity sensors), so to use it as a raw device I'm guessing I might need to re-flash it ?

Any ideas gratefully received, and apologies for the stupid questions ...

David

Re: Barking up the wrong tree ?

Submitted by pb66 on Thu, 22/01/2015 - 12:03.

I'm getting the impression that it's not so much of a raw device as a pre-built OEM component that talks to other OEM modules (e.g. the temp/humidity sensors), so to use it as a raw device I'm guessing I might need to re-flash it ?

Well yes and no :-)

The RFM2Pi is basically a Pi type GPIO specific RFM12 or RFM69 board very much akin to the JeeLink or JeeNode. It was designed specifically for OEM but uses the JeeLib RFM library.

To find out more about JeeLib visit JeeLabs.org and take a look at the JeeLib repo.

The RFM2Pi sketch is based on the RF12demo (see JeeLib examples) and will receive and pass packets in the JeeLib format.

Paul

Re: Barking up the wrong tree ?

Submitted by Bramco on Thu, 22/01/2015 - 14:07.

David I tried to respond to your post a few times but the system wasn't allowing me to yesterday or earlier today, so I started a new thread about your points 2 and 3. It is at http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/node/10048.

Hopefully this post will work!

Edit: and it did hooray!

Anyway I think you might find that your controller uses ACK/OOK type communications which is a very different type of comms to the one supported by the rfm12b type devices. I'm half way through working this out for a 433MHz controller for some external lights. I've posted where I'm at so far and some links on the post referenced above and will write things up when I've cracked it. In the meantime you might find some of what you are looking for on the links I mentioned in the other post.

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